"I've never been the type of girl who could just sit and play with Barbies or play video games. I have to be engaged," says Morgan, whose dream as a little girl was to become a marine because, "They're pretty tough and they don't take no for an answer!"

Morgan's lifelong aspiration was derailed because of her prosthesis, but that hasn't stopped her from working to achieve another of her dreams, becoming a biomechanical engineer.

As a high school student, Morgan used her personal experience and curiosity about biomechanical engineering to design an award winning science fair project, Prosthetics and Myoelectric Impulses in the Human Arm.

As a Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) intern, Morgan came to recognize how different and rewarding doing real scientific research can be. "In my science fair project, I had a generally good idea what my answer was before I started, but this [research] is all stuff that takes months, and you don't already know what the outcome will be."

Morgan's career path, once disrupted, is now re-crystallizing. "I want to do prosthetics and still want to advance defense technology, so I really hope to work for the NSA, because that's the highest level you can get serving the country without going military."